The present invention relates generally to speed-regulated exercise apparatus, and more particularly to a device wherein the regulation speed is automatically varied according to a predetermined program.
Recent advancements in the design of exercise apparatus have emphasized the importance of simulating as closely as is practical in exercise the natural movements of the specific activity for which the training is performed, or specificity, as it is called. Exercise apparatus has been devised which closely duplicates the form of such activities as running, jumping, throwing, blocking, swimming, kicking, etc., but in each case, such devices have fallen short of achieving total specificity.
For optimum specificity, an exercise apparatus must not only duplicate the form of the movement, but in addition, it must also reproduce the speed characteristics of the natural activity. Recent research on the specificity of speed in exercise indicates that strength developed in training programs at slow speeds may not be available for use in the higher speed athletic activities for which the training is undertaken. If strength training is to be of maximum benefit in an athletic activity, it must be performed at speeds approximating those encountered in that specific activity.
Speed controlled, or isokinetic, exercise apparatus is well suited to duplicating the speeds typically encountered in athletic activities. In these devices, a dynamic brake mechanism opposes any effort on the part of the exercising user to move the device faster than a preset regulation speed. Throughout virtually the entire range of motion of the exercise, however, the user is limited in his performance to the single present speed, whereas in the performance of actual athletic activities, it is more commonly the case that the speed continuously varies over the range of motion. Few, if any, natural athletic movements are isokinetic in nature.
Thus, while isokinetic exercisers can provide an exercise resistance at speeds typically encountered in athletic activities, they are by definition and by common design practice limited in any single movement, to a narrow range of operation about a single preset regulation speed. Therefore, they cannot provide optimum specificity of speed in athletic training.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,998,100 to Pizatella et al. has suggested the use of computer control to vary and regulate the operating speed of an exercising device. However, the patent did not suggest apparatus or method to accomplish such control. U.S. Pat. No. 3,848,467 to Flavell disclosed a partially programmed exercising apparatus, but only the end points of exercising strokes were subjected to programmed speed control, so that the user did not feel a lack of resistance at the beginning and end points of each stroke. It is a primary object of the present invention to improve upon prior devices in the provision of a speed regulated exerciser wherein a combination of components provides variation in the speed of the exercising stroke through the range of the exercise according to a predetermined program.